You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
> I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
Thanks, stranger.
I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life.
Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place.
Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.
They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
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Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
No, of course I haven't been doing that, and it's going to be a while before I would have collected a representative sample anyway, if I had been.
> They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations
No, they really don't. The article says
> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf
Yeah, that's not grieving.
What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?
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> Do whales grieve?
Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence.
So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.
I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
"That isn't me" in the above comment means "I know I can grieve, but I can only tell indirectly other people can do so as well."
It doesn't mean "I've never felt grief".
> I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
Thanks, stranger.
I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life.
Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place.
Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.